Room 12 Identified These Product Mascots - Can You?

I'm doing an advertising unit with grades 5 and 6 (who are also learning about propaganda and media messaging with Mrs. Hill), which will culminate with analyzing Superbowl ads.

This week, we discussed product placement in TV and movies, as well as how pervasive corporate logos are - just one abstract symbol can evoke a brand.

See how many of these companies you can identify by their logo.

You can also try this version or this one instead.

Companies and products may also use mascots, which are similar to logos, but as N.A. in Room 6 pointed out, they're alive. The students were able to get extra credit points for attempting to identify these product mascots ... how many can you get? (Honestly, it's probably a good thing if you don't know them all).

Here is Room 12 collaborating on the assignment:

Mock Caldecott Finalists - Batch 3

Each January, the American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." The 2016 winners were announced last week, but first- and second-graders are still making it through our Mock Caldecott list. After finishing up our list of 12 titles, these two will be moving on to the final vote in a couple of weeks:

Toys Go Out

penguinrandomhouse.com

Written by Emily Jenkins
Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

(Being the wintertime adventures of a curious stuffed buffalo, a sensitive plush stingray, and a book-loving rubber ball.)

A quiet celebration of wonder and exploration. Not as laugh-out-loud hilarious as some of our other selections, but sweet and gently humorous. Heard after reading: "That was nice."

Rude Cakes
Rowboat Watkins

goodreads.com

Don't be a rude cake.

They have no manners.

But they make adorable jaunty little hats for cyclopses.

Step-by-step instructions for drawing your own Rude Cake are here.

Fourth-Grade Faces

Room 10 likes the About Face game too.

AM PreK Snowmen and Faces

offtheshelf.typepad.com

After reading All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle (illustrated by Barbara Levallee) and Snowballs by Lois Ehlert, PM preschoolers had a choice of activities.

They could color their their own snowmen or play with a game called About Face. This game has the kids create silly faces by combining hair, eye, nose, and mouth playing pieces that feature everyday objects (like the ones that Ehlert used to decorate her snowmen in the book - see pages to the right).

Mrs. Manca visiting the library.

Mock Caldecott Finalists - Batch 2

Each January, the American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." The 2016 winners were announced last week, but first- and second-graders are still making it through our Mock Caldecott list. After reading another five books, these two titles will be moving on to the final vote in a couple of weeks:

michaelhallstudio.com

Red: A Crayon's Story
Michael Hall

Red's label says he is red. But all of his coloring turns out blue. His parents, teacher, and art supply friends all try to help him be red, but he just can't do it. Finally, a new friend sees him for who he is.

As the author's web site notes,"This funny, heartwarming, colorful picture book [is] about finding the courage to be true to your inner self."

giannamarino.com

Night Animals
Gianna Mariano

A possum, a skunk, a wolf, and a bear are TERRIFIED; it's late at night, and they hear NIGHT ANIMALS. Told completely in dialogue (as pointed out by J.C. in Room 1), this story about nocturnal creatures freaking out made the kids laugh. Especially when poor possum keeps fainting.

OK, PM K Will Let the Pigeon Touch the Books Now

In kindergarten, we discussed book care in preparation for the students' first checkout; they taught THE PIGEON some rules after watching this video, where he clearly has no idea how to take care of books.

The students compiled a list of rules that the Pigeon should know. For example:

DO	DON'T
read your book	color in your book
keep it away from drinks	drop the book
turn the pages gently	rip the pages
bring your book back	throw your book outside

Next, we drew our own Pigeons; Mo Willems has step-by-step instructions for drawing the Pigeon on his site. Then each student chose a rule to teach him. Here is some of their work: